Carrying on from last week Khaya had a cook off against Reuben Riffel, a seafood fricassee. Did she have a challenge on her hands. Khaya did a great job of cooking all the seperate ingredients, potato gnocchi, hake, scallops and prawns and eventually bringing a beautiful dish together. She did have a head start of 15 minutes.

Petter thought Khayas dish was under seasoned but thought her gnocchi was better. It turns out the judges prefered Reubens dish but that was to be expected I suppose. No Immunity pin for her although she did an excellent job.

Jade, Thys and Deena found themselves in the pressure test after been the bottom 3 last week. Lorraine Meaney, one of South Africa’s top pastry chefs walks in with a beautiful chocolate mousse gatteau cake. You could see all the blood drain from Deena’s face. He has very limited skill acording to him when it comes to desserts. It was as can be expected a complex gatteau with layers of biscuit, passion fruit, meringue, chocolate mousse and a chocolate glaze covering.

Right from the start it appeared as if Deena was sure to be packing as Jade and Thys definately are more comfortable with desserts. Thys was cool as a cucumber but unfortunately after 2 attempts his mousse just didn’t set and his cake did not resemble Lorraine’s. Jade also had trouble building her layers and somehow didn’t get to cook her meringue properly either. Nothing like eating raw egg.

Well who would’ve thought that Deena would create a near masterpiece with all the elements coming together almost perfectly. Well done Deena! Your cake looked great.

As always with these pressure tests one person has to leave and after 3 pressure tests it was inevitable that Jade would leave.

Amazing effort from Deena on that gatteau! One I will be attempting soon as well…who could resist?

As for the cook-off between Khaya and Reuben. Let’s just say the “blind tasting” was far from that. All 3 judges stood by and observed as both challengers cooked, completed and plated up their dishes. All 3 judges saw what Khaya’s finished dish looked like. The fake acting that occured when seeing for the “first time” and tasting dish 1 and dish 2 was abysmal. Take a lesson from the original Masterchef programs.
Next time lets play fair … have 2 judges leave the room while the cooking and plating up happens, and let those two judges taste and judge between the two plates. It’s only common sense!